Did you really think Marvel was going to stage a bloody single-take throwdown without the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen? Sure enough, just when it seems like Maya and her henchmen have disposed of their enemies in vicious, unrelenting fashion, who should show up but Matt Murdock himself? Much to her surprise (and, later, Kingpin’s approval), Maya manages to hold her own against the Man Without Fear during their ensuing fisticuffs. As Freeland saw it, this was an effective way of not only allowing audiences to discover Maya’s remarkable fighting prowess right alongside her but also honoring her origins in the “Daredevil” comic books (1999’s “Daredevil” #9, to be exact):
“I wanted the audience to be able to put themselves into her shoes and hopefully experience things along with her. I think within that as well, we wanted to honor the origins of the Echo character in the comic books. And she first appeared in the ‘Daredevil’ series in the late nineties. But in order to see how all that comes together, you have to watch the series.”
Ultimately, this sequence works because it develops Maya as a character. We watch as she kills someone for the first time, only to gain a newfound sense of confidence that visibly manifests itself in the way she plows through her remaining opponents and even gives Matt Murdock a run for his money. It’s the same reason why the original one-take fight on “Daredevil” was far more emotionally impactful than those in later seasons, which were more about upping the ante than serving the story. Just as we watched Matt prove his mettle as a hero committed to doing the right thing, “Echo” shows us Maya’s descent into the darkness she’ll spend the rest of the series struggling to escape.
“Echo” is now streaming on Disney+.